Do you find yourself pouring through press releases and other websites in order to get a view of the playing field?

Would it be interesting to see a 20K foot view (pun intended) of the teams and spaceships? An intuitive webpage that defines the current stage of the competitor's build cycle and progress on flights with statistics may generate a larger audience.

Maybe news groupped per team, and their latest progress.
And a graph of the current team progress.

I'll see what I can do.
But keep in mind, most of us have an other day time job and the xprize news site only has 4 admins, so help is always welcome...
Contact daharly_drual@hotmail.com to request to become a news admin..
And the other pages will be added on an other webspace linked from the news blog.

Give me a few days to review the "Who's on second" question. There's probably common quantifiable data that can be used for a chart or other type of representation. I'll see what I can come up with. Perhaps an interesting and compelling way of presenting the graphics is more in your line.

When reviewing the leading teams it is clear there are only 3 or 4 teams that have actually built and tested any real hardware; Scaled Composites, Starchaser, Armadillo, and Canadian Arrow.

Out of these teams only 3 have conducted any flight testing; Scaled, Starchaser, and Armadillo.

Now if you consider the long game it all comes down to funding. If any of the top 5 teams were given the same funding as Scaled it is obvious that these teams would be able to build their vehicles.

To judge which team can be considered to be in second place you have to examine each teams' vehicle, their technology, their track record (very important), actual achievements, the safety of their approach, and their long term business plan and objectives and viability.

It is also important to consider which team has the best potential to open up access to space for all of us.

This is where things get difficult and your personal preference towards each team needs to be ignored. As a member of one of the leading teams it would be wrong of me to say who I consider to be in second place, but hopefully members of this forum will reach a conclusion that is based on fact rather than the hype of PR, CGI graphics, and good intentions.

only 3 have conducted any flight testing; Scaled, Starchaser, and Armadillo.

Actually, you could add a few other teams to this list. Da Vinci tested out their rocket engines by launching an unmanned rocket a few years back (see the video on the DaVinci website). Space Transport Corp launched a series of unmanned sounding rockets, similar to what Starchaser has done.

Armadillo is also waiting to see about the site licensing for one of the commercial spaceports to (Oklahoma spaceport I bet). John Carmack mentioned that White Sands wanted roughly $750,000 for just four test flights and he wanted to do at least twice that before even attempting a manned flight. That's rough when the range costs will wind up being more than or equal to the entire vehicle costs.

When reviewing the leading teams it is clear there are only 3 or 4 teams that have actually built and tested any real hardware; Scaled Composites, Starchaser, Armadillo, and Canadian Arrow.

Out of these teams only 3 have conducted any flight testing; Scaled, Starchaser, and Armadillo.

Now if you consider the long game it all comes down to funding. If any of the top 5 teams were given the same funding as Scaled it is obvious that these teams would be able to build their vehicles.

To judge which team can be considered to be in second place you have to examine each teams' vehicle, their technology, their track record (very important), actual achievements, the safety of their approach, and their long term business plan and objectives and viability.

It is also important to consider which team has the best potential to open up access to space for all of us.

This is where things get difficult and your personal preference towards each team needs to be ignored. As a member of one of the leading teams it would be wrong of me to say who I consider to be in second place, but hopefully members of this forum will reach a conclusion that is based on fact rather than the hype of PR, CGI graphics, and good intentions.

.

So with only Rutan having flown only both fullscale AND manned, just where are all these vehicles for the X Prize Cup supposed to come from?

I think a little patience is required. It will be years before any of the teams can operate on a commercial level. Rutan is two thirds of the way up and climbing fast but is yet to finish. (Not to mention repeating the feat in two weeks.) The next closest teams will go launch capable next year and work up reliability. Others will come but the one's currently listed and not close to completion will fall by the wayside. It is my belief that once the leading 3/4 teams prove commercial viability, those with the best long-term concepts will get in the game 5 years on. These will probably be single stage HTOL such as Bristol Spaceplanes concept.

Give me a few days to review the "Who's on second" question. There's probably common quantifiable data that can be used for a chart or other type of representation. I'll see what I can come up with. Perhaps an interesting and compelling way of presenting the graphics is more in your line.

Thanks again.

The only thing anyone needs to know is in a bacon and eggs breakfast are the "second place" teams the pig or the chicken?

I think it is important who comes in second, third e.t.c. If it all stops with Rutan, it will end up as a one off achievement or at best a series of flights like X-15. It will also lead to the asumption that ALL of Rutans solutions are the optimal solutions. Another point is how can the cost come down for the public with only one provider? What can push the product on to improve? Look at Microsoft for example...

i can't imagine the real contenders just laying down their tools and crying out "we give up" just because scaled (or anyone else) wins. at least one other team than sc has the funding to continue... probably several more

i've read all posts in this part of the forum before signing up and i think some people have gotten burt rutan wrong. burt rutans main interest lies in engineering solutions, i doubt very much if he wants to run a spaceline or similar - but he does want to continue to work with whatever enginering he finds interesting. to do that he needs money: why wouldn't he take orders for ss1 crafts just like he does for any other crafts/planes sc makes?